In various locations throughout Central Florida each year, and at various times, construction-related organizations sponsor special events to showcase for high school students the many career options and job opportunities within the construction industry. One such event — a big one — was the Central Florida Construction Career Days, held Jan. 28 and 29 at the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando. CCD Central Florida, at it’s known, is one of four regional CCDs now held annually. The newest one, CCD Tampa, is set for April 13. (See the details at 222.ccdfl.com.)

Each CCD — sponsored primarily by the Florida Department of Transportation, contractors and construction associations — gets better and more exciting each year, with the highlights being the hands-on learning labs for students. The recent CCD Central Florida included more than two dozen learning labs, featuring everything from Geotechnical Engineering and Survey/GPS to Bridge Building 101 and Asphalt Cookies (something right up Tucker Paving’s alley).

Construction is such a broad and rewarding career field, and the CCDs help to show that. There are so many specialties and subspecialties in construction — from laying block to laying asphalt. There’s literally something for everyone. Even if you’re not out in the field doing work with your hands or operating heavy machinery, you can provide very important and valuable construction support in an office setting.

Close to home, we can recommend two excellent places for primary training in a variety of construction-related trades. This training, which often leads directly to very good jobs, is offered by two Polk County public schools — Ridge Career Center (www.ridge.edu) in Winter Haven and Traviss Career Center (www.traviss.edu) in Lakeland. If you think that the construction industry might be a good fit for you, be sure to check out the career center websites for program options. The education you build on today very well could lead to building roads and bridges tomorrow.

No one likes accidents. No one likes accidents on the job. At Tucker Paving Inc., we make it our number one priority to keep our work sites safe and our employees — and anyone else who happens to be in the area – out of harm’s way.
Safety in construction begins with thorough employee training and by following best practices in whatever kind of work is being done. However, even with the best instruction, the greatest care during work, and the most cautionary handling of often-dangerous machinery, accidents do happen. When they do, the next best thing is knowing how to handle them and how to provide immediate care to anyone who might be injured.
This is why Tucker Paving employees are trained and certified in first aid and CPR. This instruction is part of our construction compliance requirements, but even if it were not required, we still would have our employees trained in emergency and life-sustaining procedures. In fact, we recommend this kind of training for workers in any type of business — not just construction — because you just never know when something threatening life or limb is going to happen.
Where does first aid and CPR training begin? Two good and handy starter resources are websites maintained by the American Red Cross (www.redcross.org) and the National Safety Council (www.nsc.org). The organizations have safety as their reason for being, and each offers steps to follow to get your employees prepared to handle the most common types of emergencies and personal injuries.
To quote the famous line from the once-popular “Hill Street Blues” television series, “Let’s be careful out there.”

Going back four and five years ago, Tucker Paving Inc. crews and vehicles could be found all over northeast Polk County. During that time period, the company was fortunate to be involved in four major construction jobs from Haines City to the Four Corners area.

When the Polk County Sheriff’s Office was planning a new substation for the fast-growing area around the intersection of Interstate 4 and U.S. Highway 27, Tucker Paving was selected to be among the contractors. The PCSO’s Northeast District Substation is located at 1100 Dunson Road, north of Davenport. If you’ve ever been to the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store north of the I-4 and U.S. 27 interchange, the substation isn’t far away.

South of the sheriff’s substation, at the intersection of Minute Maid Ramp Road and U.S. 27, is the Posner Park Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership. Tucker Paving was chosen as the site contractor for this major private-sector construction project. Our work there included site excavation and utilities, putting in the building pad, paving sub-base and asphalt, and site concrete. Posner Park Chrysler had its grand opening on Jan. 25, 2012.
In Haines City, area residents are served by a new Polk County Health Department clinic that replaced a smaller clinic the department closed in October 2011. Tucker Paving was the preferred site contractor for the new clinic, located at 1700 Baker Ave. E. Our work began late in December 2011 and continued through the middle of 2012. The clinic opened to the public in early December 2012.
In downtown Haines City, Tucker Paving was hired to work on another major public-sector job. Actually, it was two jobs in one — the new Haines City City Hall and Haines City Public Library buildings. We demolished the existing facilities on the construction site in efficient fashion and then simultaneously completed all the underground utilities, site work, and paving for both the library and the new city hall.
Tucker Paving’s construction footprint in northeast Polk in fairly large. We’re just happy that we could help out with some important projects there — both private and public.